AI, ASI, The Technological Singularity

I really want to do something with the Technological Singularity because it fascinates me very much.

"The technological singularity is a hypothetical event related to the advent of artificial general intelligence (also known as "strong AI"). Such a computer, computer network, or robot would theoretically be capable of recursive self-improvement (redesigning itself), or of designing and building computers or robots better than itself. Repetitions of this cycle would likely result in a

runaway effect – an intelligence explosion – where smart machines design successive generations of increasingly powerful machines, creating intelligence far exceeding human intellectual capacity and control. Because the capabilities of such a superintelligence may be impossible for a human to comprehend, the technological singularity is the point beyond which events may become unpredictable or even unfathomable to human intelligence."

However, the topic is mostly theoretical and hypothetical, and there isn't a lot of academic research on it, so it's out.

However Doug has given me these resources to go off of and I might just be able to do something with them:

http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9822.htmlhttp://press.princeton.edu/titles/9822.html

Besides the book itself, you can look at other things McCray has written, the things cited in that book, use Google Scholar to find other things that have cited that book (https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=8609805994462037228&as_sdt=5,48&sciodt=0,48&hl=en though these don't look so useful), and build outward from there. 

These also might be useful (can use the WSU proxy to read full text):

http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/655793http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/655793

http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/376053http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/376053

http://www.jstor.org/stable/27668040http://www.jstor.org/stable/27668040

http://www.jstor.org/stable/27554124http://www.jstor.org/stable/27554124

A few excerpts from The Visioneers book have helped me narrow down my ideas, here is a good one to start off with, right in the introduction: "In 1969, Princeton physicist Gerard O'Neill began looking outward to space colonies as the new frontier for humanity's expansion. A decade later, Eric Drexler, an MIT-trained engineer, turned his attention to the molecular world as the place where society's future needs could be met using self-replicating nanoscale machines.

These modern utopians predicted that their technologies could transform society as humans mastered the ability to create new worlds."

also: "Biotechnology, especially as it related to genetic engineering and cloning, appealed to readers as did articles about the science of sex."

It's clear that these technological advancements were and still are highly sought after. Definitely something I can pursue with further research.